LAZER TEAM (YouTubeRed) review

For those of you not in the know, this movie was made thanks to the films creators going through the Indie GoGo campaign, the site where they basically ask strangers for a monetary donations to make… well, whatever they want. Such is the story of this movie, except what makes this unique is that the creators are from the popular YouTube gaming channel, Rooster Teeth, creators of the popular spoof of the video game franchise HALO, RED VS. BLUE, and several gameplay videos of video games. I was aware that the team was making a movie, but I wasn’t aware that LAZER TEAM was the one. I hadn’t seen any previews for it, and since I wasn’t a subscriber to YouTubeRed, I figured I wasn’t going to bother with it. But then a cousin of mine requested that I review this movie for him (because for some reason, I’m taking requests now), and figured I’d find the movie somewhere online to watch. Lo and behold, I found it.

This is my honest opinion of: LAZER TEAM

(SUMMARY)

A while back, the military received a message from aliens that their doom was at hand. A malevolent alien race was coming to wipe them out if they didn’t accept their gladiator styled fight to the death. In order to prepare for the impending fight, the military started training Adam (Alan Ritchson) to be Earth’s champion, an intelligent and highly athletic and lethal soldier who doesn’t know how to fail, and to be able to master a super space suit that will grant him the means to fight a fair fight. However, when the suit arrives, it’s found by a group of four losers, ex-football stars and friends Hagan (Burnie Burns) and Herman (Colton Dunn), and two dimwits, the jock Zach (Michael Jones) and Woody (Gavin Free). The suit came in pieces, meant to be on one body, but the losers grab separate pieces which permanently latches onto the guys and gives them that piece of the suits powers. The military gets a hold of them and, seeing no other alternative, has Adam train the guys to prepare them for the coming fight. But they’re not an effective team and end up escaping to figure out what they want for themselves.

(REVIEW)

And… I’m thoroughly disappointed.

While I won’t say I’m the biggest Rooster Teeth fan, I have found their videos to be humorous. I think the biggest reason why is because they’re unscripted (at least, the videos that I watched were). By nature, these guys are probably hilarious. Unfortunately, their movie has resulted in something that was less funny than PIXELS. Yeah, I said it, a Happy Madison movie was funnier than this.

The biggest problem is that the characters are horribly written. Hagan is now a police officer. He gets no respect, which isn’t all bad… until he’s called to break up a noisy party and does so many things that cops don’t do. He barely does anything to stop his underage daughter from drinking, he drinks that same drink to deal with Zach, who is particularly rowdy, and agrees to not to take him to jail because… his daughter asked him not to. Um… why? First off, your daughter is drinking too. She should be right next to Zach in the back of that car. Second and third, what do you owe them that Zach shouldn’t be arrested? Zach’s not her boyfriend, in fact if anything, he’s a perv toward her, she knows it, and hates it, and… seriously, how are you a cop??

The movie just isn’t even that funny or always clever. Maybe a few jokes here and there, like the football scene in the beginning is a reference to RED VS. BLUE by having one team dressed in red and the other in blue, that was pretty clever. But laughs are virtually nonexistent and too far in between.

While I won’t bash the special effects too much, as this isn’t a studio movie with a budget of millions of dollars, but what effects it does rarely get right, like the super-speed, the creators really wants to hammer in that it’s the most amazing thing to grace our eyes. A tad annoying.

Unlikable characters with a story that has no stakes that carry weight, it’s too bad more thought didn’t go into the story. Just a bunch of nerds running around with a camera and a budget.